Mise-en-scene refers to everything visible within the frame of a shot including color, costume, props, location, blocking/performance, and lighting. It provides context and reveals information about characters and their relationships. Color, costume, and lighting can be used to convey mood and symbolism. Blocking positions characters in the frame to show their importance. Props provide context and clues about characters. Location can be purpose-built sets or real world places. Together, these elements of mise-en-scene help tell the story on screen.

1. Mise-en-scene
What does mise-en-scene mean?
Mise-en-scene is everything that is in the scene. It is a French word and means
everything in scene.
What are the 6 key areas of mise-en-scene?
Colour,Costume,Props,Location,BlockingandPerformance,Lighting.
Blocking– placinga personina certainplace to show theirimportance orimplysomethingabout
them.
Colour:
How is colour used in the 3 below pictures?
1. The red colour on the inside shows anger and that she is evil. The two
colours on her hair shows she is 2 faced. Her jacket is white on the outside
so people think she is pure and great but on the inside we see the black
dress which shows her true self. Red gloves foreshadows that at some
point in the film she will have blood on her hands and be caught killing the
puppies.
2. Dark colours are used to show she is a dark and evil person. Her green skin
complexion shows she is like a disease, sickly and something to stay away
from, green is symbolic of the jealousy she has on sleeping beauty – envy.
The purple shows she isn’t what people thing she is and a small amount of
her is good and people misunderstand her.
3. Light colours show purity and that she is a princess with the pure white
colour. The bright contrast of colours for example the blue and white shows
she is still young and able, the blue shows she has some light coming into
her life.

2. Mise-en-scene
Costume:
What can we interpret from these costumes?
1. The characters here are wearing clothes that are normal winter clothes for
the UK and are usually worn by slightly lower class people or those who
don’t choose to dress as smartly. These characters come across as less
well off with clothes that have been handed down through generations.
They are probably working class with less disposable income to spend on
things like clothes.
2. Sherlock and Watson are dressed smartly because it is how they’re
portrayed as people, they are quite upper class and solve a lot of crimes or
issues which is a specialized job and not many people can do something
like it. Their differences are the face Sherlock is slightly more covered up
with a scarf and a longer coat which shows his character as he isn’t socially
intelligent and conceals himself to the outside world.
Props:
Option 1 - You have to provide props for a tense police interview between two
officers and one suspected murderer. Decide what props you would incorporate
and how the actors should be directed to use them.
Option 2 – You have to provide props for a romantic meal between two characters
on their first date. Decide what props you would incorporate and how the actors
should be directed to use them.
Props needed: Torch, Police officer clothing, ragged clothes for the criminal, good
cop note writer, bad cop detective
How actors would be directed to use them: The note taker is very nice and is the
good cop. The detective would be intimidating with his torch and shine it in the
criminals face.
Location:
Can be a purpose built set or a real location

3. Mise-en-scene
Blocking/Performance:
 Blocking refers to the positioning and movement of actors within the frame,
both in relation to each other and in relation to the camera (which
represents us, the audience)
 Performance covers all aspects of the actual acting – gesture, expression,
accent etc.
 More important characters are generally in the
foreground of the image, we can see the man in
the background is less important. The woman in
the red dress is looking down on the woman sat
down so she may have done something wrong
or is being judged for something, she is inferior
to the woman in the red dress.
Lighting:
How is lighting being used to create mood in the following examples?
High key Lighting – This form of lighting usually consists of no shadows as it is
lighted from all angles.
Low key Lighting – This lighting has lots of shadows and contrast in the set as
there is generally lighting from less amounts of angles.
Ambient Lighting – This form of lighting uses natural lighting to light the set and
make it a lot more natural and can set the scene more as if it is naturally dark it is
more realistic and the characters look more in a real place like in image 1 we can
see it is night time and because of this it looks much more real.
Walking Stick, Gun, Hat, Pen, Backpack, Phone, Watch, Glasses, Ball, Shoe, and
Boom box.
The cane shows he is mentally unstable as much as physically. He is unprofessional
because he is a doctor and carries a gun. He is childish with a playful side because
he says things that are inappropriate, he uses go karts and children’s items. He uses
women as props and seems like a bit of a sex pest.

4. Mise-en-scene
Clothing – hat, leather jacket, plain gray shirt, jeans, earrings
A lot of leather – old school
Earrings might show he is rebellious which is why he is against robots and wears old
school clothes.